Jeff, I'm sorry about the sewer and water situation but if I had the chance to switch off of septic, I would in a heartbeat. We've had 3 homes with septic systems and I just shudder every time we decide the house we like has a septic system. The house we just had septic work done on, the former owner said they'd never had the tank emptied nor the system checked out or repaired and they refused to do so before we bought the house. It was some bossy old guy who clearly liked to get his own way about everything so we bought the house knowing there could be issues down the road. Well, we've owned this house for 18 years and aside from the recent issue related to the drainage tube, it hasn't been too problematic. That said, I'd switch to a public sewer system any day over this.

I was just thinking about your paint colors last week when I was walking Larky past a home I've always thought looks so attractive. What color did you select?

Oh I would love to go to regular sewer, however the cost of hooking up, $46,000. Several quotes from my neighbors. I didn't bother getting quotes. So until the septic fails, not going to hook up. That quotes doesn't count restoring the basement. I have a finished basement with of course all the sewer lines going out the back of the house. They need to reroute all the sewer lines and then dig down through the basement floor and go out the front of the house to the sewer. Tearing up everything in the path and right through the basement wall. That does include fixing the cement floor and basement wall and filling in the old septic system. Right now the septic is in great shape. So just going to stick with it.

Still sticking with the gray color, with white trim and really considering since I will have black shutters, maybe going black door as well. Seen this as kind of a new trend. like this.

Building platforms for rain barrels so we can install them behind the shed, then get eavestroughs on the shed to empty into them. Building new compost bins to replace our existing ones. Choking out about 400 square feet of front lawn, where we will sow wildflower seed this fall.